


The Feasibility of Eternity

by Sapphy, SapphyWatchesYouSleep (Sapphy)



Series: The Eternal Batman Universe [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Case Fic, Future Fic, M/M, Other, Riddles, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/SapphyWatchesYouSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With only a few hours left to save Bruce Wayne, Dick goes in search of help from Alternate Universe versions of Bruce. What he finds is not what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Feasibility of Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tendency to twist the DCU to fit my own ideas, so although it's stated to be Earth 1, it's probably best to view Dick as coming from a pre-52 AU version of Earth 1. Obviously the world he visits is entirely my own creation.
> 
> I own nothing, the characters belong to DC.

_**Robin** : Hey, Batman, what're we gonna do once we finally get rid of all the criminals and everything? Move to another city? _

_**Batman** : I don't think that's something you have to worry about, Robin _

_**Robin** : Okay,so, then we'll just stay in Gotham and keep doing this, right? Forever and ever? _

_**Batman** : We'll do this as long as it's effective. And feasible. _

_**Robin** : Right. Like I said. Forever... _

(Nightwing #75)

 

 

The first thing Dick does when the blackness of the void between worlds (or wherever it is he’s just been) fades into the normal gloom of the Batcave is do a quick inventory. His stomach seems to still be somewhere back on Earth 1, possibly on a rollercoaster, but he’s got a full contingent of arms and legs and really, with Victor at the controls that is the best he could hope for. (Not that he dislikes Victor especially, but years of evil clones and mind control and a fair dose of plain stupidity has left him deeply suspicious of any Justice League members who aren’t Bruce).

 

When he’s certain that Victor didn’t manage leave any important bits of him at home, he looks around him. At first glance he’s in the Batcave, but when he looks closer he realises that the familiar vaults aren’t unchanged. The tech is different, smoother, more futuristic looking, and the familiar bank of screens is two, three times the size of the one he knows. The screens are all black except for two, one showing what looks like a rolling news channel, the other showing the inside of a cell, a figure in the familiar orange straight jacket of Arkham, head bowed so Dick can’t make out his face.

 

The walls of the cave are different too, textured with something other than just rough stone. When Dick edges closer he realised with a frisson of almost amused horror that the walls were carved with thousands of faces, roughly shaped but distinctive, some laughing, some crying, most screaming.

 

Okay, Dick tells himself. Maybe this Bruce is a conceptual artist in his spare time. This doesn’t have to mean he’s cracked.

 

“You know, if you’re a kissogram you picked a really bad costume,” a horribly familiar voice says behind him. “And if you’re trick or treating I think you got the wrong month. Plus I ate all the candy.”

 

“You!” Dick snarls, spinning round in time to catch Joker by the front of his… tee shirt?

 

“All right, all right, you got me,” Joker says, and it might be Dick’s imagination but his smile looks a little bit smaller than last time he saw it, and he’s not wearing any make-up except for the distinctive lipstick. “There never was any sweets. It’s strictly soup only down here. I mean I keep telling him, Bats, the human body needs sugar. My body needs a little sugar. But these days Bats aint putting out.”

 

Dick shakes the Joker, out of habit more than anything, and then stops, realising that he doesn’t know the details of this world. He doesn’t even know if Joker is a bad-guy.

 

“Why are you here?” he asks instead. He doesn’t want to put Joker down, because letting Joker get out of your line of sight is generally a terrible idea, but he adjusts his grip so that he’s not holding him so tightly.

 

“Why, I’m the Joker, your friendly neighbourhood prisoner of war,” Joker says, waving one hand vaguely. “That’s what Bats calls me. I prefer to think of myself as a pet. I got tags and everything,” and before Dick can stop him, Joker’s lifted up the edge of his tee-shirt to reveal his stomach, too thin but surprisingly muscular, with the raised red imprint of a scar at the base of his sternum. A scar in the shape of Batman’s logo.

 

“Did… you do that?” Dick asks, hoping like hell for an affirmative. He’d been prepared to deal with retired Batman, or female Batman, or civilian Batman, or even evil Batman. Psychotic Batman might be a step too far. A little too close to home for one thing.

 

“He said he was tired of coming to fetch me when I ran away,” Joker says. It’s not really an answer.

 

Satisfied that this Joker can’t be as dangerous as the one he left behind, no way would any version of Bruce, however crazy, would let that Joker loose in the cave, Dick sets him back on his feet. His unshod feet, Dick notices, long toes wriggling in elderly socks that are more hole than sock. In all his years, and all the costumes he’s seen Joker don, he’s never seen him this casual, or this… pathetic looking.

 

“Where’s Batman?” he asks, looking round the cave.

 

“Have you got a spare costume,” Joker asks, instead of replying. “I mean, I don’t think it’s Bat’s thing, but hey, anything’s worth a try. Tried the Boy Wonder costume last… month? Probably last month.” He nods to the familiar glass tube, displaying Jason’s costume. “I didn’t figure kids was really his thing, but hey, a girl’s gotta try, right? I wrote to the Dear Lana column, told her my man doesn’t pay me any attention any more. She said you gotta find your shared interests. Remember what originally brought you together. So I punched him in the face. I mean, that always used to work. This time? Nothing. Zilch.” He turns to peer at his reflection in one of the black monitors. “D’you think it’s cos I’m getting old?”

 

“I’m looking for Batman,” Dick says again, hoping to penetrate Joker’s self obsession with repetition. Maybe if he says it often enough, Joker will tell him out of sheer exasperation.

 

“Well aren’t we all!” Joker says, sounding irritated. “He doesn’t tell me where he’s going, and he doesn’t tell me when he’ll be back. I wake up, he’s gone. Eventually, he comes back. Sometimes he brings food.”

 

“You… live here?”

 

“I told you, I’m his pet. I haven’t been outside the cave for… four years? Might be longer. What year is it out there?”

 

“I don’t know,” Dick tells him. “I’m not from around here.”

 

Joker bounces on his toes, hands clasped in front of him like an excited child. “Ooo, have you come to rescue me? Did Quisling sent you? Or the Dogs of War?”

 

Dick is starting to feel sick. He knew, in theory at least, at the Bruce he was looking for wouldn’t be the same person as the Bruce he’d left behind, but nothing could have prepared him for this.

 

“I’m looking for Batman. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

 

His distress must show in his voice, because Joker pats him arm in a way that would probably be comforting if it wasn’t the man who’d murdered Jason doing it.

 

“Don’t worry dear. I don’t mind really. I just wish things could be like they used to be. You know when he first brought me here he wouldn’t let me out of his sight for five weeks?” Joker sighs happily, like that’s some kind of golden memory for him.

 

“What happened to him?” Dick demands. “This cave, and you… this isn’t the Batman I know.”

 

“Civil war,” Joker replies.

 

“Here? In America?”

 

“In Themiscyra,” Joker says. “Manhunter and Bats said leave them to it, Supes said intervene. He won. It didn’t go so well. After Wonder Woman was killed Manhunter went home, and Supes went off on an intergalactic road trip, to try and ‘find himself’.” Joker snickers. “He made Batsy immortal before he went. Said he wouldn’t leave earth undefended.”

 

“Immortal?”

 

“Well, part Kryptonian technically. Just the immortal part, not the laser eyes and flying part.”

 

“When was that?”

 

“80, maybe 90 years? Not sure. Lost count.”

 

“Well why’re you still alive?”

 

“Oh, I couldn’t leave Batsy all alone, now could I?! He’d go quite mad without me.” Joker grins, the wide wild grin that Dick’s familiar with. “It amazing what science can do, especially when you’ve got Vandal Savages DNA and temporary access to a Lazarus pit.”

 

“And now you… live in the Batcave?”

 

“Yup. Just me and my Batsy-baby in our cosy little love nest. Course it gets kinds boring sometimes, but I’ve got 4000 TV channels, and sometimes if I ask nicely Batsy brings me books.”

 

That at least offers Dick a safe topic of conversation. “You still have books in the future?”

 

“Not really. Most people have those itty bitty computer things. But I like books. They smell nice. And they’re flammable, which computers mostly aren’t, not without lots and lots of gasoline. I set fire to Bats’s computer once, when he wasn’t paying enough attention to me. It smelled like human hair and lost dreams.”

 

“When’s Bruce going to be back?” Dick asks desperately. He doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.

 

“Well I don’t know!” Joker exclaims, clearly offended. “Why don’t you ask Mr Batsy loves me so much he has me on twenty four hour TV over there!”

 

Dick looks at the screens, and to his amazement the figure in Arkham uniform turns, looking straight up into the camera, and mouths something that looks to Dick like “Hello Batman”.

 

“Did he just…” he asks, turning to Joker for confirmation.

 

“One day I’m going to figure out how he does that,” Joker says, glaring at the monitor. “Damn Scarecrow!”

 

“Scarecrow?” Dick starts to asks, because the young man in the cell, almost girlishly pretty with vividly blue eyes and high cheekbones, looks nothing like the scarecrow he knows, but he’s interrupted by the sound of grinding stone in the distance, and a few slivers of moonlight begin to flood in from one of the dark corners of the cave, where part of the wall has slid aside to allow a Batmobile to come roaring in. _A_ Batmobile because this one looks nothing like the one at home, angular and black enough to be recognisable, but squatter and more military looking than he’s used to.

 

Joker’s hand slaps into Dick’s chest, and he hisses in his ear, “stand there and look decorative.” Dick looks down at himself, half expecting to find a bomb strapped to his chest, but instead there’s a vivid red bow stuck to him, the kind with sticky plastic on the back so they can be stuck to presents.

 

The Batman who steps out of the Batmobile is older than the one Dick knows, more grizzled and a lot more heavily armoured, but the biggest difference, the one that tells him firmly that this is not his Bruce, is the way he looks at Joker when the smaller man skips over, long arms waving expansively.

 

“Batsy, darling, home so soon? I nearly didn’t have time to wrap your present! Look at him, isn’t he just adorable? Can I keep him? Can I can I can I? I promise I’ll remember to feed him, and I’ll walk him just as soon as you let me out of here!”

 

Bruce is wearing an expression Dick has only ever seen on Bruce’s face when he’s dealing with Tim, tolerant and a bit fond, just the tiniest hint of a smile caught at the corner of his mouth. Then he sees Dick and all softness goes out of his expression.

 

Bruce crosses the room in three long strides, catches Dick up by the front of his costume and hauls him off his feet.

 

“Think this is funny?” Bruce growls. “Think you can mock me, boy?”

 

“I’mtherealNightwingIcametotalktoyouthisisn’tajokeIpromise,” Dick gasps out, all it one long breath.

 

That at least gets Bruce’s attention, and he’s lowered until his feet touch the ground.

 

“Say again,” he growls.

 

“I’m Nightwing, from another dimension. The JLA sent me here, they thought you’d listen to me. I told them no, if you’d listened to me I’d still be Robin, but hey, you can’t argue with Superman.”

 

“Prove it. If you’re Dick, prove it.”

 

“Er… I’ve got a scar on my left knee from falling off a trapeze when I was seven. And the first night I stayed at Wayne manor you told me about your parents, and you said the hurt gets better with time. Aaaand, oh and I told everyone Oracle dumped me, but I know she told you that I dumped her, and you scowled at me for a month afterwards.”

 

Bruce stares at him for a long time, eyes searching his face, and then he nods. “Coffee,” he says, turning his head towards Joker but not taking his eyes off Dick. “I need coffee.”

 

“And what did you last slave die of?” Joker demands, though he’s already turning away and heading towards one of the dark recesses of the cave.

 

“A combination of Joker gas and a batarang to the face,” Bruce says grimly, and Dick silently prays he’s not talking about Alfred.

 

When Joker’s out of the way, if not out of earshot, Bruce turns back to Dick and says, “Explain. Now.”

 

“It’s Riddler. Well, Riddler and the Secret Six. They’ve kidnapped Batman.”

 

“He let himself be taken by those amateurs?” Bruce demands, with a sneer of contempt.

 

“Bane’s on their team at the moment,” Dick says defensively.

 

“Ah.” Bruce nods. “That didn’t happen here. But I suppose that makes it somewhat more understandable. And Riddler’s set a riddle to be solved to free him, is that it?”

 

“Yeah. The Justice League did their best, but they figured it was something only you could solve, you know? I mean, you’re not exactly the sharing type, and it’s kinda personal.”

 

“Tell me,” Bruce demands.

 

Dick takes a deep breath and begins to recite, feeling a nervousness he hasn’t felt since he was a kid and Bruce used to quiz him on his lessons.

 

“In all his long life, there’s been but one Romance,

“The Bat created a lover, to join him in his dance,

“To a cosy little love nest, his true love he’d lure,

“Where he could keep them for ever more, safe and secure.

“When you solve the riddle, you’ll know where to find the Bat,

“But good luck getting him out, you might need to call a cat.

“We figure that last line’s got to be a reference to Catwoman, which means presumably he’s locked up somewhere with pretty high security, but as too the rest of it… We, er, we checked the place where you and Talia… you know. Where Damien was conceived.”

 

“How the hell do you know where…?”

 

“I didn’t. Damien did. Have I mentioned recently that Talia is creepy? Because she’s really creepy.”

 

“You haven’t mentioned anything recently,” Bruce says calmly. “You’ve been dead for nearly half a century.”

 

“Oh. Yeah, right. Wow. Awkward. Hey did I…”

 

“I’m not telling you your future, Nightwing. Probably not the same anyway. This is a different dimension, remember.”

 

“Tea, Coffee or Potluck?” Joker asks, appearing apparently from thin air behind Bruce.

 

“Coffee,” Bruce says, holding out a hand for a mug. He hadn’t even flinched when Joker stepped into his personal space. It bothers Dick how comfortable with one another these two are. If this were a different Joker, if this one were a good guy, he could deal. But so far this seems like the maniac he knows, only older and a little sadder.

 

“Pick a mug, boy wonder,” Joker says, holding out the remaining two.

 

The mugs are old and chipped, and both contain dark liquid. Dick takes the one that looks like it could be tea, on the basis that at least that one’s probably been boiled. The other looks like treacle.

 

His mug turns out to contain green tea. He sips it and tries not to pull a face at the bitterness. Bruce drinks it on occasion, and so does Tim, but Dick’s never been able to get a taste for it.

 

Joker downs the contents of his own mug in one go, and when he puts it down his top lip is painted black, like a Goth version of a frothe-stache. Looks like Dick was right about the treacle. Joker really must be desperate for candy.

 

“What did you think of the riddle, Joker?” Bruce asks.

 

“I thought it was lovely,” Joker says with a happy sigh. “I didn’t know Riddler was such a romantic. I really feel quite guilty now. If I’d known I would have been ever so much nicer too him.”

 

“You wouldn’t have joker-gassed him?” Bruce asks, and again there’s that fond note, as though he’s talking to a friend, or one of the bat-family, not his psychopathic nemesis.

 

“Oh no, I’d still have gassed him. Sometimes I think I’d like to gas everyone in the whole world. Don’t you think that’d be fun?”

 

“You did that,” Bruce says, and his voice is gentle. “The JLA stopped you.”

 

Joker’s grin widens. “I’d quite forgotten that! A whole day where everyone in the world was smiling. What more could anyone ask for? You know, that was what I told the Miss World judges I wanted.” He frowns. “Do they still do Miss World?”

 

“It went bankrupt,” Bruce says. “Do you know the answer to the riddle?”

 

“Well of course _I_ do,” Joker says, apparently offended. “But it wasn’t meant for me. If I solve it for them, that’ll be cheating!”

 

“You always cheat,” Bruce says, and Dick wonders how he can be so patient with the man when he lives with him twenty-four seven. It must be exhausting.

 

“Oh yes, so I do. Shall I tell you the answer, wonder boy?”

 

Dick grits his teeth and says, “Please.” He won’t beg, not this monster, but they need to find Bruce before it’s too late.

 

“I don’t know…” Joker says, feigning worry. “I really don’t like to condone cheating. Not when I don’t get anything out of it.”

 

“What do you want?” Dick asks him.

 

“Nothing you can give me,” Joker says, smiling nastily. “You’re a little young for my tastes. No I was thinking that maybe big daddy Bat might be so keen to help his little Batling that he’ll give me something nice.”

 

“Name your price,” Bruce says.

 

“Let’s see now... Candy. Lots of candy. Nice candy too, not the crappy discount stuff no one else wants. And make-up. And a puppy. And a play station.”

 

“Well…” Bruce begins, but Joker interrupts him.

 

“Actually no, on second thoughts, I don’t want a puppy. Or a playstation. Or any of that other stuff. What I want… what I really want, is for you to take me on patrol with you.”

 

Bruce shakes his head. “Out of the question Joker. You can’t be seen alive.”

 

“I’ll wear the Robin costume. No one will suspect!”

 

Dick can see that this is going to end in a fight. The little muscle in Bruce’s jaw is twitching, and Joker’s eyes are alight with that manic fever they get when he’s about to really upset the Batman.

 

“I’ve got an idea,” he says, and then has to rack his brains to actually think of one when they both turn to stare at him. “How about… Batman has to speak to you, twice. Every single day.”

 

Joker’s eyes are as wide as a child’s at Christmas. “Forever?”

 

“Forever. Unless he can’t. Or you run away. Or you die.”

 

“It’s a fair price, Joker,” Bruce says, and Joker nods, expression still kind of awed, and Dick wonders uncomfortably what the hell happened to Joker to make him so desperate for even such a small amount of human contact.

 

“You promise?” Joker asks suspiciously. “Cross your heart and hope to die promise?”

 

“I give you my word,” Bruce says, and Joker lets out a little sigh of contentment.

 

“He’s at the old homestead,” he says, not looking away from Bruce.

 

Dick’s first thought is of Joker’s current base in an abandoned toy factory, but the phrase rings a bell. He’s heard Joker use it before.

 

“Arkham?” he asks at last. “He’s in Arkham?”

 

“In my room,” Joker says. “I wonder if the pillow still smells of me.”

 

Dick runs the riddle through his head, in light of Joker’s idea, and it all fits. Well, nearly.

 

“Riddler thinks you two are lovers?!” he demands, incredulous.

 

“There’s more than one kind of dance,” Bruce says, but he sounds embarrassed.

 

“And more than one kind of soul-mate,” Joker agrees, pleased. “I was made for Batsy, literally. Bye bye Mr Nobody Red Hood, hello the only person who’s ever truly understood him. It all adds up.”

 

“Well,” Dick says, “Thanks, I guess. If that’s your answer then I’d better…” He gestures towards the bulky signal unit strapped to his thigh.

 

“A word, before you go,” Bruce says, all imperious, and Dick follows him back towards the Batmobile.

 

“Tell your Batman, when you find him, tell him, he mustn’t win. Joker mustn’t win.”

 

“Well obviously,” Dick begins, but Bruce cuts him off.

 

“Not because of the harm he’ll do,” he says, impatient and dismissive, as if the thousands Joker’s killed don’t matter. “Because it will break him. When he won, it… broke something, inside him. That mustn’t happen. You mustn’t let it.”

 

Dick doesn’t know how to respond to that, doesn’t want to spend another second in this room, with the walls carved with screaming faces and a Batman who doesn’t care about collateral damage and a strange child-like Joker. He presses the button on his signal unit. The last thing he sees before he’s whipped off into the vortex is the pleading expression on Batman’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please comment and leave kudos, it means a lot to me.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at gluttonforpunsihment (my own fics plus my fic recs) and lentilswitheverything (general fandomness)


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